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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23200099">Flying</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadBart/pseuds/DeadBart'>DeadBart</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Community (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Blood and Injury, Canon Compliant, F/M, Gen, Post 6x03 Basic Crisis Room Decorum, Suicidal Thoughts, Vomiting</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 07:20:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,795</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23200099</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadBart/pseuds/DeadBart</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Jeff is lost in the woods, literally and metaphorically. Duncan tries to pull his old friend back from the brink.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Annie Edison/Jeff Winger, Ian Duncan &amp; Jeff Winger</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>112</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Flying</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story is a bit of an exercise in personal catharsis for me. It goes to some kind of heavy places, but I think it's ultimately hopeful. I hope you feel that too.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Jeff stumbled out of the back door of the bar and into a small, unpaved parking lot. He staggered past a couple of cars and into the trees at the lot’s perimeter, stopping for a moment to vomit violently.</p><p>Slowly wandering into the dark woods, Jeff stared up at the starry sky peeking through the tops of the trees. He considered, for a moment, what might be up there. What it might be to fly above the trees and away from the miserable ball of dirt he was bound to.</p><p>Jeff felt stinging tears forming in his eyes and for once chose not to make the effort to hold them back, instead using that energy to drive himself further from the light of the bar, further from the sound, deeper into the black wilderness.</p><p>He’d come to this dive far outside of town to be absolutely certain he wouldn’t be seen by anyone from Greendale. He needed to be totally alone. Part of him had wanted to keep driving, to leave everything behind and drive off into the night. To fade into the darkness. Not to go anywhere, just to fade away. He gently touched the bottle of pills in his pocket. Everything reeled.</p><p>The sky became the ground and vice versa. Jeff felt as if he was held static while the world tumbled away from him, then slammed back hard.</p><p>He lay on his side, his cheek in the dirt, and vomited again. Alcohol or stomach acid, it burned the whole way out. He wondered to himself why he didn’t feel any better with the burning corruption expelled from his system. He tried for a moment to lay on his back, began choking on another round of vomit and collapsed back to his side, retching.</p><p>Finally he felt sure that he couldn’t purge anything more and kicked at the dirt, shoving himself back into the protruding roots of a tree. He gazed up through a break in the trees at the glowing white moon and wept, his tears mingling with blood running from his nose. He wondered idly if he was going to die. A shiver ran through him.</p><p>No. Not a shiver. A vibration.</p><p>Jeff pulled his phone from his pocket, the screen now cracked and embedded with dirt, and stared at the screen.</p><p>“Ian Duncan” flashed across the screen as the phone continued to buzz. Jeff quietly considered the red and green options the phone presented him with. Stop and go. Answer another call or just hang up. For a moment he thought again of flying. He tapped the green icon.</p><p>“Winger! How’s it going buddy?!”</p><p>Jeff continued staring silently up at the moon. He heard Ian’s voice loud and clear, but somehow he just couldn’t find the words to answer him. He felt as if he were on the moon, a million million miles away, out of range of all human communication. Ian spoke again.</p><p>“Jeff?”</p><p>Jeff took a deep breath and lifted the phone to his face.</p><p>“Hey Ian.” he croaked.</p><p>“Jeff, what’s going on?”</p><p>Silence for a long moment.</p><p>“I’m a little... I’m a little lost to tell you the truth, man.”</p><p>“Where are you?”</p><p>Jeff found it difficult to think. His heart was pounding and his breath was quick and painful. He sobbed for just a second into the phone and felt shame well up inside himself. He heard the voice of his father calling him a chickenshit little brat. The cold clawed at his skin and he longed for a moment to be wrapped in gentle arms, to run his fingers through dark hair and lose himself in deep blue eyes and cry himself ragged. The feeling of fading away struck him again.</p><p>“Jeff?! Where are you?!” Ian shouted through the phone.</p><p>The fear in his friend’s voice brought Jeff enough composure to answer.</p><p>“I’m out in the woods.”</p><p>“You’re out in the woods?”</p><p>“I was at the Tar Pit. You know that place?”</p><p>“Jeff its me. Of course I know the bloody Tar Pit. Where are you now?”</p><p>“The woods. Somewhere out back. I don’t know. I’m in here deep. Lost.”</p><p>“Look on your phone and tell me your coordinates.”</p><p>“I just want to go to sleep. I just want to go...”</p><p>“Tell me where you are.” Ian’s voice was calm and measured, but commanding. Something Jeff had never heard from him. He opened the GPS on his phone and rasped out the coordinates.</p><p>“Jesus Christ.” Ian sighed, “I’m coming out there to get you. Just stay put you bloody idiot.”</p><p>Jeff nodded, alone in the dark.</p><p>“Okay.”</p><hr/><p>Ian found Jeff unconscious, laid against a tree with blood and vomit staining his shirt. He put a hand on his shoulder and shook.</p><p>“Jeff. Jeff!”</p><p>There was no response.</p><p>“Winger I need you to wake up right now. You’re built like a fucking ox and there’s no way I can get you back to the car like this.”</p><p>Jeff stirred and looked up at Ian, his eyes red and raw.</p><p>“Okay, okay I’m awake.” he coughed, his throat burning, “Why are you the knight in shining armour tonight?”</p><p>Behind his thick glasses, Ian’s eyes were wide and very nearly panicky. He tried to project confidence.</p><p>“Because I’m a fucking drunk, Jeff, and I’ve seen people die like this before.”</p><p>“What?” Jeff looked up at him derisively. Ian resisted an urge to slap him.</p><p>“You’re right on the edge of alcohol poisoning. If you didn’t have the constitution of a bloody viking we wouldn’t even be talking right now.”</p><p>Ian put an arm under Jeff’s shoulder and dragged him to his feet, bracing him against the tree. Jeff coughed and stumbled.</p><p>“Just let me go.” he sighed. Ian gripped his chin and lightly smacked the side of his head.</p><p>“The only place you’re going is back to my car. Come on.”</p><p>Jeff groaned, but he let Ian lead him through the trees and finally toward the spit of dirt behind the Tar Pit.</p><p>A car door opened, Jeff felt himself drop onto a blanket draped across car seats. In other circumstances the seat belts digging into his hip would have bothered him, but he was lost in his own mind, numb to the world outside.</p><p>Ian rambled about anything and everything as the car cut through the dark and back into the streetlights of Greendale County. He shouted whenever Jeff seemed ready to drift off into sleep.</p><p>Jeff wandered through a faint memory of a dark tunnel in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, the walls painted with projections of lawyers and fathers’ fists and tiny gentle lights being extinguished.</p><hr/><p>A splash of cold water on his face brought Jeff back to a measure of lucidity. He coughed and looked around, trying to get his bearings.</p><p>He was sprawled against the white tile wall of the shower in his condo. Ian crouched in front of him with a now empty glass. The light above seared his eyes and buzzed in his ears.</p><p>“What’s going on?” Jeff asked.</p><p>Ian stood up and grabbed a hand towel, tossing it down to Jeff.</p><p>“I imagine most of tonight is going to be a blur to you within a little while. Probably for the best in my experience. I never thought it would be me dragging you piss drunk out of the woods in the middle of the night. What the hell were you doing out there?”</p><p>Jeff moaned and rubbed the back of his head. Dried blood flaked off onto his hand.</p><p>“I had some things to think about.”</p><p>Ian gawked at him.</p><p>“You had some things to think about? About six litres of booze worth of things by the smell of you.”</p><p>Jeff stared down at the floor silently.</p><p>“What is the matter with you lately, Winger? I thought you were happy with the gig at Greendale.”</p><p>Ian’s voice was a mix of concern and a benign sort of annoyance.</p><p>“For four years, I was doing good. For the first time since... maybe ever... I was doing good.” Jeff whispered.</p><p>“Well what the hell happened?” Ian asked.</p><p>“I finished school and I went out into the world and I realized something.” Jeff looked up at Ian, tears now flowing down his scraped cheeks.</p><p>“I realized that everything I learned at Greendale, everything I became, just made me weak. I went out into the world and it ripped me apart. I failed. I lost everything. And then I went back to Greendale to hide because I don’t think I can survive anywhere else anymore.”</p><p>Ian sat down across from Jeff and sighed.</p><p>“You’re institutionalized.”</p><p>Jeff laughed sadly.</p><p>“Maybe. And then Pierce died. And then Troy left. And then Shirley. Everything that made me safe at Greendale just started drifting away. And I fucked up.”</p><p>“What are you talking about?” Ian asked, in a tone that Jeff was sure was meant to say “No you didn’t.”</p><p>“I shoved it down for years. I ignored it and denied it and it just kept burning brighter and brighter and I think its killing me now.” Jeff’s eyes grew dark and distant, as if he were a million miles away.</p><p>“Are you talking about Annie?” Ian squinted at Jeff.</p><p>Jeff snapped back to reality and locked eyes with his old friend.</p><p>“How do you-”</p><p>“Everybody knows, Jeff. So what... you’re depressed about a girl? You were going to crawl out into the woods and die because of that? Why don’t you just talk to her?”</p><p>“Its not just that and its not... its not that simple. I was like this before I ever knew her and I dragged her into it for years. And last year, down in that fucking basement, she finally did what she should have done from day one and figured out that I have nothing to give her. And a few minutes later I figured something out too. I figured out that she can move on and find the life she deserves, but I never can. I’m never going to get over her. I’m never going to make it outside of Greendale. And Greendale’s slipping away. Yesterday she was going to go. And I should have let her.” Jeff stared confidently into Ian’s eyes.</p><p>“So I decided to just let myself slip away too. Get out of everyone’s way and stop spreading my sickness around.” he said.</p><p>Ian met his gaze, looking almost angry.</p><p>“Then why are you here now? Why did you answer the phone?”</p><p>Jeff’s confidence, and his stare broke in unison.</p><p>“Because I’m weak.”</p><p>Ian smiled.</p><p>“I think you went out there because you were weak. I think you answered the phone because you were strong.”</p><p>“I’m falling.” Jeff sobbed.</p><p>“I think that’s the first step to flying.” Ian said.</p>
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